Showmar Photography

We needed a break?time for our 2008 Photo Tour!  We wanted to get up to North Carolina for the change in colors and to ride the parkway.  We had discussed taking a different tour?you know, some place other than our annual trip to North Carolina, but we couldn?t resist going back.  We promised each other that next year?s tour would take us to some other destination, because it seems that every year we end up in the Blue Ridge or Smoky Mountains. 

I called a hotel in Murphy about a week in advance and found out that the leaves were still there!  The reservation agent told me that the colors were not as vibrant as past year?s, but there were definitely nice colors and the weather was great!  That?s all I needed to know! 

We headed up on Friday night and only made it as far as Atlanta.  On Saturday morning, we drove around Atlanta and caught some interesting shots of people and buildings.  The only problem was the weather was quickly changing and dark dramatic clouds were rolling in.  There was a drop in temperature, which made standing outside for any length of time very difficult.  The locals didn?t seem to have a problem, but remember?we?re from Florida and temperatures in the 30?s is almost intolerable to us.  After a few hours and a hot cup of coffee, we continued our tour into Murphy, North Carolina.

It was cold in Murphy, too.  Not only cold, but bare and brown!   The leaves were no longer there and the trees were bare naked!  After the disappointment passed, I told my husband that we were calling this tour, ?The Bare Naked Tree? tour.  Bare trees are beautiful in a different sort of way.  Some of my bare tree shots are pretty cool!

We arrived in time for dinner and ate at our favorite Murphy restaurant, ?Shoe Booties?.  Our favorite dish is the Bourbon Almond Crusted Chicken (their specialty).  It?s actually the best I?ve ever eaten!  That night was the most excitement we had during our very long two day stay in Murphy.  It is a desolate boring little farming town.  The waitresses and the farmers all long to leave, but find themselves stuck there  This is absolutely disturbing for us, considering we have an acre of land that we plan to build on for our retirement home.  Anybody want to buy an acre in Murphy????  It has a grocery store, a Wal-Mart (of course), a few restaurants and a trading post!  Oh?and they just passed the liqueur law there, so you can order a drink in a restaurant now!!!  If you do plan to visit Murphy, there is another pretty good place to eat called Brother?s.  It?s real down home Southern Style cooking.  I love the sweet potato fries! 

Our next destination was Asheville, with a stop in Waynesville for apple cider and apple cookies.  We stopped at Barber?s Apple Orchard off 19/23 on Old Balsam Rd.  The apple trees are all bare, but the barn is filled with at least 5 different varieties of apples.  I bought apples for Thanksgiving.  I use them in my stuffing and I love to make applesauce to have with our dinner.

We arrived in Asheville at 3pm and went directly to the Biltmore House.  It was very cold in Asheville, in the upper 30?s.  The garden?s were empty and brown.  Not much to look at outside, but inside there were Christmas trees everywhere!  There was a huge beautiful tree in the dining room and smaller trees in every other room.  The library had a row of trees?five or six, I think!  It was gorgeous.  Unfortunately, they don?t allow photography inside.  After touring the home and taking plenty of photos outside, we headed to the vineyard to see the wine barrels and participate in the wine tasting.  We left there with four bottles of North Carolina grown, Biltmore wines and several shots of the tanks, barrels and private collection cellar wines.  From there, we ate dinner in the Bistro, directly across from the wine building.

I was very disappointed in the dinner we had.  We both ordered baked chicken, which was served with mashed potato and string beans. We also ordered a glass of wine.   Since we had already purchased four bottles of wine, we felt that we could have gone to Boston Market, ordered their chicken and mashed potatoes, corked our wine and had a better meal and a fraction of the price!  It just was not that impressive.  Oh, don?t let me forget to mention that our waiter was less than cordial.  I suppose that the attraction is the Biltmore house and the vineyard and not the fine dining.  I should probably not have expected much, but I did. 

That was the extent of our visit in Asheville.  From the Biltmore, we drove as far as we could toward the Blowing Rock area.  We spent that night in Hickory.  Hickory is awesome!  That?s where we wish our land was.  Anybody wanting a gorgeous wooded acre in Murphy?let me know!

The next morning, we headed to Catawba, which is not far from Hickory.  I wanted to photograph the Bunker Hill covered bridge and Murray?s Mill.  These are two historic sites that I have not yet shot and I was very eager to see them.  We arrived first at the Bunker Hill Covered Bridge location.  The gates were padlocked and a sign was posted, ?Closed Tuesdays?.  UGH!  This was Tuesday and we weren?t going to be anywhere near here again during this trip.  I got over it almost as quickly as the fact that the trees were bare, because I knew that Blowing Rock was next and I would be riding the Blue Ridge Parkway in a matter of hours! 

Anyway, I anticipated that Murray?s Mill was probably also closed, but we decided to drive there and check.  Sure enough?it was closed, but I was able to at least photograph it.  It?s a beautiful mill, probably one of my favorites.  It has an Americana appeal to it.  Most mills that I?ve shot have been of wood construction.  This mill is a brick structure, built in 1913.  Also on the grounds is the Murray and Mingus general store, built in the 1890?s.  I shot both buildings.

Finally, we were on our way to Blowing Rock!  The drive from Hickory is a constant incline to the top.  As we climbed, the temperature dropped and when we finally arrived, the temperature was in the mid 20?s and there was snow!  That day was the first snow they?ve had in at least four years.  Very cool!  I was going to get to shoot it!

We went and checked in to our room.  We have been staying at ?The Homestead Inn? since 1998.  It?s a quaint little place, the rooms are not very spacious, but they are very comfortable!  Each room is uniquely decorated country style with big fluffy quilts on the bed, serene country paintings on the knotty pine walls, thick soft mattresses and lots of fluffy pillows.  You can get a room with a fireplace and Jacuzzi tub.  We didn?t this trip, because the rooms were already reserved.  Maybe next year?oh wait, next year we will be going someplace else??..  I forgot!

Anyway, we were starved, so we went to ?The Canyons? for an early dinner.  That place has the best view in Blowing Rock?.the best view anywhere, actually.  The food is good, too.  We each had something from their Mexican selection of dishes.  When we finished, we headed up the Blue Ridge Parkway for an hour or so of driving and shooting.  That was the highlight of this trip, as far as I was concerned.  We headed up and drove no more than 10 minutes when we were faced with a locked gate and a detour sign.  Detour, right!  Detour right back down and off the parkway.  The mountains were closed!  Is that possible?  They close the mountains? 

Apparently so!  We started back down and on the way, stopped at Cone?s Mansion.  It?s a large beautiful home overlooking the Blowing Rock.  We got out of the car and walked around shooting snow scenes.  It was so cold!!!  My hands were freezing and I couldn?t feel my ears.  We walked quite a distance from the car and when we realized how terribly cold we were, it was a major effort to head back, but there were no other options.  I was thinking about how lucky I am to be living in Florida where the temperature doesn?t drop that low for more than a few days at a time.  Hmmmmm?maybe we should reconsider property up there at all?????  No wonder people retire to Florida!!!

The next morning, we woke up and eagerly headed back for the parkway, hoping that it would be reopened.  We were in luck, or so we thought.  We reached the same location where we arrived at the locked gate and it was open!  We continued on our journey and were able to stop and shoot at a few different lookout points.  Our luck ran out when we hit another locked gate.  We were again detoured down the mountain and found that we had actually not gone much further than the night before.

We headed to Boone and Valley Crucis where we shot a covered bridge and then took a  walk down memory lane in the  Mast General Store.    I wanted to get a shot of the store and went across the street to fit the store into the shot (which reminds me, I need a good wide angle lens!).  I was shooting with my 24-105 f4.0/L lens and was having trouble fitting the store into the image, so I kept backing up until I could see that it was going to fit.  All of a sudden, I felt my heel slipping and turned to look over my left shoulder.  When I looked down, I was already in the process of falling into a deep (possibly 6 ft) hole that had a large rock and about a foot of water at the bottom.  It?s amazing how many thoughts fly through your head in a split second!!!  I knew if I fell, I was certainly going to be seriously hurt, so I twisted my body to the left and aimed my right foot toward the outer edge of the hole, missing it by a fraction of an inch.  Lucky for me, there was a little ledge just below the hole?s edge and STOMP, STOMP?.I managed to step right then left on that very edge and forced my body to the right, hitting the gravel/paved ground to the right of the hole.  I landed on my right side with a thump, just in time to see my camera land on the pavement, right in front of my face!  Again, amazing how many thoughts fly through the mind in this kind of situation!  I wear my camera around my neck, to avoid dropping it.  When I fell, the camera was forced the opposite direction, causing it to land just after I hit the ground. 

I laid there for what seemed several minutes, but I?m sure it was seconds.  All I could think was when I pick up that camera, it?s going to be broken!  I gently picked it up and gave it a slight shake.  No rattles, no loose pieces, nothing left on the pavement, was I to be so lucky?  I was shaking pretty badly?I guess fear of a broken camera and because of the fall I had just taken.  I was very worried as I shot off some images and reviewed them on the display?.they seemed OK.  Apparently, the only damage to the camera was a few small scratches on the casing.  I was lucky!!!  The only injury to me was bruising on my hip and a pulled muscle in my arm.  Today, only four days later, the arm is pretty much pain free and the bruise is lighter!  I was so relieved!!!  I have to digress here for a moment?. This fall made me think about my life long best friend (and cousin), who passed away last March.  She laughed every single time she witnessed someone falling.  She laughed for days after Fidel Castro fell on steps.  Every time they replayed it, she would call me hysterically laughing.  She laughed when Miss America fell in Mexico and she laughed when I fell some years ago.  I could hear her laughing at me this time, too! 

OK, anyway?.On with our trip!!!

The next day, it was time to check out and move on.  We decided to give the parkway one last try and got further, but again hit a locked gate and had to come down.  We stopped in a town and asked why the gates were still closed.  We thought it was due to snow and ice, but found out that the road is closed due to road damage.  Here is the information:

Parkway closed from Milepost 367.6 to 355.3: A rockslide and roadway failure has closed the Blue Ridge Parkway to all activities including foot traffic and bicycling between the entrance to Craggy Gardens Picnic Area and the entrance to Mount Mitchell State Park. The picnic area is accessible driving north from the Asheville area and the state park is accessible via the NC Highway 80 entrance to the Parkway. This road closure will remain in effect until late spring 2009.

Wish we read that BEFORE we went?..although, it would not have changed our plans at all!

We came down from the mountains and headed to Hilton Head, South Carolina.  Why, I don?t know!  It isn?t my kind of place at all.  It is so commercial and even the lighthouse has a restaurant attached to it.  I felt like I was in Boca Raton or Ft. Lauderdale.  The road leading to the lighthouse is filled with golf communities and establishments for the wealthy.  I took my shot at the lighthouse top and left as quickly as we arrived.  We headed from there to Savannah, Georgia.

In Savannah, we enjoyed the river walk area and ate at a great place called Huey?s.  The food was excellent!  It was a New Orleans style place offering Cajun cuisine.  We both had crab cake sandwiches.  Our server offered her southern hospitality with a smile!  She was a very cute young lady named Courtney (hope I?m spelling it correctly).  I took a picture of her, but unfortunately, it is out of focus!  UGH!!!   

From there, we went to Tybee Island to get some shots of the lighthouse.  All in all, I got great shots of a sailing vessel in the port, some of the historic architecture and the lighthouse!  We loved Savannah!

From there, we went straight home.  I?m refreshed and feeling great!  It was an awesome trip!  Today, I?m listening to the news and they keep talking about the unseasonable snow and weather being experienced by the people in North Carolina.  I think to myself?.and yeah, I got to shoot it!  

Next year, we may do the East Coast?maybe follow I-95 all the way up as far as we can go considering the amount of time and money we have to spend.

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